American Go E-Journal » World

Go-Verband Berlin and fm-one Management Services GmbH will host the 17th annual “Go To Innovation” Tournament in Berlin from November 14 through November 16 at the “Manfred von Ardenne – Gewerbezentrum.” Cash prizes will be available for the top 10 players, the best female player, and for players with 8 wins; book prizes will be available for players 11-20 and as consolation. Players who register before November 11 will receive a 10 EU discount. A steep discount is also available for youth players under age 16. To register or for more information, please visit the official 17th “Go To Innovation” website.
—Annalia Linnan; for complete listings, check out the European Tournament Calendar

The most anticipated go event in decades concluded on September 28, when Lee Sedol 9p (right) defeated Gu Li 9p in their historic jubango, winning the eighth game by 2.5 points. The 350-move game was the longest in the series, and took place in Gu Li’s hometown, Chongqing, China. With this victory, Lee Sedol took the lion’s share of the 5,000,000 RMB prize money (more than $800,000 USD), and cemented his place in go history. The final score for the series was 6-2 in Lee’s favor, although this statistic belies how tightly fought several of the games were.

Korea’s Jeju Island hosted the 18th China Korea Tengen from September 23 to September 26. Defending champion China’s Chen Yaoye 9p (left) has won the tournament for the past three years. With four total wins, Chen matches the accolades of Gu Li 9p and Lee Changho 9p. However, Park Junghwan 9p seemed determined to seek revenge for fellow Korean player Park Younghun 9p who was unable to stop Chen in last year’s tournament. As the only person to defeat Chen at the Tengen in the past, the pressure on Park Junghwan was high but he prevailed. Park won games one and two by resignation and restored the game record for overall wins to 9-9.

Chile, Ecuador, and Mexico held their first ever three country online tournament for youth on July 27th, reports Chilean organizer Sebastian Montiel. Dubbed “Las Tres Águilas” the matches were held on the OGS go server. Ecuador took first and second places, while Chile finished third. Diego Albuja organizer of “La Piedra en el Lago” Academia de Go reports “go in Latin America has taken shape recently for youth, but it’s imperative to develop a study system. Playing online tournaments is a way for under-18 players to test their skills. ‘Las Tres Águilas’ tournament is the first initiative to match children in Latin American countries in a friendly and competitive spirit. We’re delighted for the success of the tournament, especially because now Ecuador’s players have worthy opponents in other countries. Finding people who share the idea that the future of go is in youth, enhances our go teaching activities.”

Live coverage of the eighth round in the MLily Gu vs Lee Jubango starts Saturday night at 9pm PST (midnight Sunday morning EST). It takes place in Gu’s hometown, Chongqing, and with the score currently at 5-2 in Lee’s favor this game is a kadoban for Gu and might be the last of the match. Commentators on Baduk TV will replay and analyze the game from the beginning and Go Game Guru’s An Younggil 8p will translate and discuss the game with Baduk TV Live viewers. Access to the game costs $2.70 with a Baduk TV Day Pass. If you plan to watch the game from the very start, remember to subtract three hours from the times given above. Baduk TV starts the coverage three hours later because the games go for so long.- Go Game Guru

Korea’s Wei TaeWoong (right) swept the 9th Korean World Amateur Championships (KPMC), winning all six games on September 19-20 in Seoul. US representative Ben Lockhart scored an impressive 5-1 record, losing only to Wei in the final round (photo). China came in second, followed by Taiwan, Japan, the US, Mexico and Russia. The key game was Wei’s fifth-round match against Hu YuChing from China; Hu led slightly from the beginning, but Wei hung in and succeeded in turning the game around. “I am very happy to win the KPMC,” said Wei, “and I will prepare with my best for next year’s pro qualification tournaments.”- wbaduk.com

“Go is getting interesting in Latin America,” reports Mexican organizer Siddhartha Avila, “we’ve been organizing online tournaments for kids with Chile and Ecuador, and they have been a great success. I’ll be at the Iberoamerican Go Tournament in Quito, Ecuador (Oct 9-12) and I hope to meet some of the other organizers in person. We held the very first children’s online match between Chile and Mexico on June 28th, with the participation of twenty children from both countries! We used the OGS Go Server for this match. Go servers like KGS, OGS, IGS are widely used for tournaments or matches between countries in Latin America, and locally, the biggest of them being the Iberoamerican Online Go Tournament organized by Federación Iberoamericana de Go, its 15th edition last year drew more than 100 players.”

For the Chile-Mexico match, there where kids from 5 different schools in Punta Arenas, Chile: Colegio Luterano, Escuela Pedro Pablo Lemaitre, Escuela Juan Williams, Escuela Contardi, Escuela Manuel Bulnes. The match was organized by Club de Go Aonken and their teacher, Sebastián Montiel. On the Mexican side, all the players were from Escuela de Arte Pipiolo and Gimnasio de Go in Mexico City. “It was a great experience, that fills us with joy and enthusiasm to continue sharing go with children of our city, and around the world,” said Montiel

“We’ve had online matches with other schools in the US and Canada before,” said Avila, “especially with Peter Freedman’s students (Portland, OR) and in tourneys like Tiger’s Mouth, the School Team Tournament by the AGHS, or the AGA’s NAKC. We were glad to receive Sebastián’s invitation to play the Chile-Mexico match, and we have in mind inviting more countries where we know there are go programs, or go is taught to children. Ecuador, Venezuela, Argentina, Colombia, Costa Rica, Brasil and Cuba, all come to mind,” adds Avila. Mexico won the matches 8 – 2, full results, and pictures, can be seen here. A report on the first Chile-Ecuador-Mexico match will run in next week’s E-J. -Paul Barchilon, E-J Youth Editor. Photo: kids from Gimnasio de Go enjoy themselves playing against Chile.

Learn Go Week started last weekend, with go players all around the world — 60 events in 21 countries – running teaching events in their local communities. The first-ever event runs through this coming weekend, so if you want to get involved, you can still run a beginners’ night at your local go club this week; click here to let Go Game Guru know about it. This weekend, on September 21, 1004 go players in Korea will attempt to break the Guinness World Record for the most simultaneous games of Go in one place, the headline event at Seoul’s Street Without Cars festival. Last Saturday, the San Diego Go Club sponsored a go demonstration and teaching event at the Japanese Friendship Garden in Balboa Park in San Diego. “Dozens of people touring the garden stopped by the koi pond site to play a game or learn the basics of go,” reports club president Ted Terpstra. And in Raleigh-Durham-Chapel Hill, North Carolina, the Triangle Go Club of hosted Yuan Zhou to come from Maryland for a public outreach event (right) on September 13 in the community room of the Earth Fare grocery store. Zhou gave a lecture on the history and cultural aspects of go in China, and also played a simultaneous exhibition match against eight local players. “Triangle Go Club members and Zhou also chatted with onlookers about the game, played friendly demonstration games outdoors, and distributed Way To Go’ booklets,” reports local organizer Paul Celmer. Click here for Go Game Guru’s report on Learn Go Week activities thus far, including lots of cool photos of events in places like Canberra, Australia (left).

Registration for the 2014 SportAccord World Mind Games – Pandanet Online Tournament continues through September 30.The winner will participate in the 4th edition of the SportAccord World Mind Games (SAWMG), scheduled for December 11-17 in Beijing. Following last year’s success with participation in the SAWMG reaching 700,000 players worldwide, SportAccord — in partnership with RSportz, the community-based global sports network, and online platforms Bridge Base Online, Chess.com and Pandanet — is launching the World Mind Games Online Tournament Portal, a community-based destination for all participants featuring information on the online games’ rules, mind sports’ news and tournaments’ results. Follow the games on Twitter at WorldMindGames, hashtag #mindgames2014

The Bridge, Chess and Go online games will be operated and hosted by platform partners Bridge Base Online, Chess.com and Pandanet respectively. Registration is open for players from all levels, advanced to beginner. All participants get a chance to win prizes including Samsung TVs, tablets, Rado watches, and more. 12 000$ prize money will be shared among the winners of the tournaments. The tournaments will start from September 15 on all platforms.

SportAccord, the Union of International Sports Federations, operates four Multi-Sports Games, the World Combat Games, the World Beach Games, the World Urban Games and the World Mind Games. The 4th edition of the SportAccord World Mind Games will once again feature bridge, chess, draughts, go and xiangqi (Chinese Chess) in cooperation with the respective International Sports Federations. “The SportAccord World Mind Games reunites the world’s best players who compete for glory and prize money,” said SportAccord. “SportAccord is constantly looking to engage more people in mind sports in a fun and exciting way through cultural programs and online games.”

Xu Jiayang 2P and Huang Mingyu 5d, both of China, won the 31st World Youth Goe Championship, held in Kuala Lampur, Malaysia from August 13th to 19th. The US players were chosen by the Ing Foundation, and included Albert Yen 6d in the senior division (under 16 years old) and Brandon Zhou 4d in the junior division (under 12 years old). Eric Liu 1d was also invited to compete as a special representative. “I have learned a lot from this tournament,” Yen told the E-Journal, “especially from the games in which I was defeated. I lost to Japan, Taiwan, and Korea. Fortunately, our team leader, Mingjiu Jiang 7p reviewed several of my games so I could learn from my mistakes. Although I wanted to do better than 8th place, I have tried my best. Overall, the 31st World Youth Goe Championship gave me an opportunity to make friends and compete with the top youth players in the world.” Fourteen countries participated, with twelve players in each division. Yen placed 8th in the Senior, while Zhou and Liu placed 6th and 8th in the Junior. The runner up of the Senior was Lee Eodeokdung 5d from Korea, and the runner up in the Junior was Shih Ching Yao 6d from Taiwan. Complete results, plus photos of the event can be found on the 31st WYGC website. -Paul Barchilon, E-J Youth Editor, with Albert Yen. Photo: Albert Yen (l) of the US vs. Low Rea Qiu of Malaysia.